India's soapstone mining industry digs up problems

DW (English)

India's Himalayan Uttarakhand state is a main source for this globally in-demand commodity. But its extraction is exerting a heavy toll on local communities and the environment.

Transcript

00:00 Soapstone powder is a sought after raw material used in many consumer products. Himalayan

00:08 soapstone from India has a high amount of magnesium silicate and its powder is used

00:14 as a filler material for many products. This ultra-white, odourless, soft and antibacterial

00:22 powder is used as a filler material in cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, floor tiles, plastics, paper

00:29 and in food preservation. India is a top global exporter of high quality soapstone powder.

00:42 But uncontrolled mining is harming both the environment and social fabric in the Himalayan

00:48 region of Uttarakhand. 58 year old Hamchandra Kanthpal has spent his entire life in India's

00:56 western Himalaya region. He fears soapstone mining will soon destroy his ancestral lands.

01:06 Kanthpal says the ground under his home is sinking and destroying everything on top of

01:10 it. We have repaired our house three times and still the cracks have emerged. It's not

01:24 safe to live here. Since they have started using earth mover machines, this place has

01:32 been completely annihilated. Many houses have cracks here. There are cracks all over the

01:39 area. Every year the government cements the road by spending 500 to 600 thousand rupees.

01:47 The impact of land subsidence goes up to there. Let me take you inside my house. You can see

01:55 the crack, almost 2 inches deep here and it is all over. My whole hand is going inside

02:10 this crack here. This is where I sleep. This is my bed. There are more than 8 open pit

02:18 mines within a 5 km radius here. Some residents say they are subjected to intimidation when

02:26 they complain to authorities. We cannot even raise our voices. The administration is with

02:33 them. If we file a complaint to the administration, then they intimidate us. According to India's

02:39 mining policy state governments set up a district mineral foundation to assist in the welfare

02:45 of areas affected by mining. A percentage of royalties from mining is given to the foundation

02:51 which allocates funds towards environmental protection and on the welfare of locals in

02:56 areas affected by mining. These areas often lack good medical facilities, education, access

03:03 to drinking water and other necessities. Ghanshyam Kandpal operates two soapstone mines with

03:10 a partner. They have spent more than 50 million rupees to obtain a mining license. Millions

03:19 of rupees are needed for a single mine. In the beginning 10 to 15 million rupees are

03:23 needed to get a mining license. Then there are the machines, there are landowners. Let

03:29 us assume that 50 million rupees are needed at the beginning. Underneath these mines the

03:40 Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates are smashing against each other. This geological collision

03:45 makes this region one of the most earthquake prone areas in the world. According to the

03:50 Uttarakhand government around 30% of India's soapstone exports come from this seismically

03:55 active region. And despite the risk, mine license holders work hard to maximise their

04:01 profits but it doesn't always pay off. We want to extract as much as we can so that

04:10 the owner, the landowner and we also earn some money. So far we do not have any benefit

04:17 from this mine. The cultivators and landowners benefited. The owner could not make a profit

04:23 because he invested millions of rupees but the quality of mineral is not particularly

04:29 good. Because of this the company is still at a loss.

04:41 Many mine workers are migrants from Nepal, a poor areas of India who work for a daily

04:45 wage without proper safety gear. Along with the risk of earthquakes or mining accidents,

04:58 another hazard is breathing in fine dust particles which is almost impossible to avoid in summer.

05:06 The soapstone mines here also dump waste debris in the nearby Punja river, a tributary of

05:13 Saryu river in the upper Ganges basin. As a result, the river is full of mining waste

05:18 and is now drying and dying.

05:35 Migrant workers die here often. There are incidents where someone was buried under the

05:40 mine. Some are referred to higher medical centre in Aldhawani and then nobody can trace

05:47 them.

05:48 India's director of mine safety Prabhat Kumar visited this region in May 2023 and said the

05:54 state has done a good job in preventing mining related accidents. However, activist Balakrishna

06:03 says that state officials are often promoted from mining companies and safety issues are

06:09 ignored.

06:16 The person who was a manager in a private soapstone mine became the mining officer in

06:21 the district in 2008. He was then promoted to deputy director of mining. These back to

06:28 back promotions happened within 3 to 4 months. It seems that the rules for promotion were

06:33 ignored to promote a particular person.

06:37 The mining officer in question has denied these allegations. But this region has seen

06:41 more than a dozen top district officials in the last 15 years. Critics say those who do

06:46 not bend to the mining lobby will not stay in control for very long.

06:51 What was the information related to district mining funds never made public here, as is

06:55 legally required?

06:57 I have no idea why district mining fund audit reports were not made public before me. But

07:02 ever since I joined, we have made all out efforts for audits. Our accounts have been

07:07 cleared. And now in the next few weeks, our accountant will do the audit. Their auditing

07:13 is mandatory. But why was it not done earlier, I will not say anything on this. But from

07:19 this year, we will rectify it.

07:28 There is fraud here when it comes to submitting documents related to environmental impact

07:32 assessment. There needs to be information about distances from the glaciers and river

07:37 basins. How are you going to control it?

07:52 We need to refine the mining policy itself, because the district administration will work

07:57 according to the policy. If it is written in the policy that there should be aerial

08:01 distance, then it will be measured there.

08:07 We can see how much the environment is being affected, how we can save it, looking at the

08:12 economy here. Research on this cannot be done at the district level. Experts from the district

08:18 can be included, but this will have to be done at the state level, because this is not

08:23 the policy of the district, but of the state. It can also affect the policy of the whole

08:28 country.

08:39 State governments in India set policies for soapstone extraction. However, some policy

08:44 makers in Uttarakhand are themselves stakeholders in mines.

08:55 I have a leasing contract for soapstone mining. I have extracted the mineral for two years,

09:02 but now it is on hold. As I work in a social service, those two things cannot be done at

09:09 the same time. I serve the public the whole time. That's why mining activities are on

09:14 hold.

09:37 We are now heading to Chaurastal village in a remote area at an elevation of 2,100 metres

09:43 from the Himalayas, close to three glaciers.

09:47 Chaurastal is the ancestral village of 58-year-old Bhagwat Singh Deoli. As a child, he used to

09:55 work in a soapstone mine as part of an employment scheme launched in the 1980s.

10:06 At that time, there was a shortage of money. There was poverty here. The yield of grains

10:11 in our fields was also less. Meanwhile, we heard that there were jobs here at the mine,

10:18 and we used to work for a wage of Rs. 8. While digging, we and the villagers saw that a land

10:24 subsidence was happening here. There was erosion. Seeing this, we stopped working. Then we villagers

10:33 held a peaceful protest and the mining was stopped here.

10:44 How bad has subsidence gotten since that period?

10:50 This land has sunk due to the mining of that time. It has been subsiding since then. There

10:55 is no stone or rock under the soil. That is why it keeps sinking in many sections.

11:12 Alarmed by the subsidence, 28 villages in the region came together and protested the

11:17 mining.

11:19 Everyone decided that we would dedicate this stone to the goddess Kali. Since then, the

11:24 goddess Kali has been the owner of the soapstone here.

11:30 Local daily wage worker Digha Singh says that challenge is not over yet.

11:36 The soapstone reserve has been preserved only by the goddess. However, the politicians are

11:41 still trying hard to start mining here.

11:44 It has been more than four decades since soapstone mining on a big scale started in this Himalayan

11:50 region. A lucky few have become millionaires, but the land and the people continue to suffer.

11:58 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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